Architecture and Design for Retirement Living of the Future

Smart Home Technology: Futureproof Design for Aged Care and Retirement Living

Architecting Aged Care and Retirement Living

Architecture and design for the aged care and retirement living is in a period of transformation. Moving from traditional hospital care model to an improved hybrid model that focuses on efficient care, lifestyle and quality of life. If you are interested in designing buildings and spaces for the growing aged care and retirement living market follow CareVision on spec net, for your weekly aged care and retirement living design advice.

Smart Home Technology

Make Life Safer and Easier

There is no doubt that there are far-reaching benefits of incorporating smart home technology in aged care and retirement living spaces, not least providing older people with a safety blanket and assurance that help is available at the touch of a button, or by simply asking your bedside lamp. Imagine the level of accessibility that smart home technology offers people with limited mobility, such as asking CareVision to turn the lights on when going to the bathroom at night reducing the risk of falling, or being able to see who is at the front door on their CareVision TV and unlocking the door for them to enter without having to rush to the front door, or calling out for a carer's help if they do not feel well and cannot reach the nurse call button.

Blending Smart and Functional Design

In the brave new world of IoT, and the smart home, aged care and retirement providers should embrace the freedom, efficiency and accessibility that smart home technologies can provide, but they must make sure it is incorporated into or alongside familiar design and interfaces. Many architects and designers in the aged care sector fail to recognize the long standing research that shows as people age, the first things they forget are the most recently learnt. When designing smart spaces, it would be wise to still incorporate traditional and familiar interfaces for people that's memories are failing, such as the common switch. Yes, the wall switch and the humble button are interfaces, and will remain one of the simplest most commonly recognized interfaces for generations of aged care.

Smart Technology for Communication & Engagement

Smart TVs are also changing the landscape of Aged Care and Retirement living, as they become smarter, they are able to act as a communication portal, or window for residents of aged care to the world! Think about the traditional care facilities, where people pay huge sums of money to enter care, and are cut off because there isn't even a phone in their room. Families have reported spending hours on end just trying to get through to their loved one, calling the switch, being transferred to a nurse station and waiting for ages before the phone rings out. With the CareVision smart TV, residents and their families have never been more connected with simple ways to communicate, have a video call, or recieve photos and video messages from their loved ones. The CareVision smart TV is the most aged care friendly, as it is as simple as turning the TV ON, and can be personalised to the individuals needs, such as color schemes for color blindness, font size and content preferences.

Designing for Scale and Volume

When incorporating smart technology into an aged care or retirement village, it is important to consider how this technology will cope with scale and volume of people within a space. Consider for example if you will need voice recognition to determine if a person asking a smart speaker a question has authority to do so, such as ordering services. If the grandkids come to visit and order up on the room service menu, how should this be handled? Additionally, how will you manage the devices, having someone go around pairing devices to mobiles or not being able to manage the devices in a central place would be a nightmare in a large facility. The CareVision platform allows you to register devices and manage them remotely, making it possible for care organisations to offer smart technology and smart home spaces at scale.

Stay tuned for the next installment of Architecting Aged Care from CareVision.

CareVision offers design consulting services and technology for the aged care, retirement and disability sector, helping architects and designers address the challenges of designing for such environments. Contact CareVision Today 1300 324 070.